Is it possible to render vertices in Blender?
You can use DupliVerts to achieve an effect like this. Compared to other methods for rendering vertices, DupliVerts are going to give you by far the most control over materials, though the procedure for using them is slightly more complicated. They also have the advantage of working regardless of which render engine you are using.

To use DupliVerts to render vertices, follow these steps:


Add a new mesh object (I prefer using spheres for this) and scale down to your desired size
Using the Transform panel (N), move that object to the exact same location as the object you want to render the vertices of, by manually entering in the coordinates
Now hold down Shift and select your target object. Make sure both the target object and your sphere are selected, and that the target was selected last
Press Ctrl+P and parent the object
Go to the Properties>Object panel, scroll down to "Duplicate", and select "Verts"


Now you will a copy of your sphere positioned at every vertex of your target object. You can now choose which materials to use for each of the objects. If you want to render only the vertices, then assign a Transparent material to the target object, and a visible material to the dupliverts.

My result, using DupliVerts on an Icosphere with and orange diffuse material in Cycles: